Today Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs finally unveiled the iPad, an HD tablet designed to fill the space between the iPhone and the home PC. Not only will this new tablet run HD movies, iWorks and Safari, but Jobs also boasts that it was built to run iPhone apps and games, full screen, at two times their native resolution.
Up until now Apple has been slowly breaking into the gaming market with the success of their app store. Game developers like Gameloft, Gamevil and EA have used the platform to produce wonderful, full game experiences but have been somewhat hampered by the iPhone‘s lower resolution and processing speeds. It seems, however, that Apple is hoping to boost their gaming credibility with the introduction of the iPad.
The iPad boasts a 1GHz Apple A4 processing chip and up to 64GB of built-in storage capacity. It has a 9.7 inch multi-touch screen that nearly doubles the resolution of the current iPhones. Gameloft and EA Mobil have already created iPad enhanced versions of their games N.O.V.A and Need for Speed: Shift which take advantage of the iPad’s higher resolution and larger screen real estate.
The base model iPad is going to be released for a mere $499 USD and will be able to support at least 140,000 of the current applications in the app store. The current release is scheduled for March of 2010. More detail to come as they are released by Apple.
they ain’t gonna compete with kindle at $500 base. Kindle is half the price.
this thing is supposed to challenge the kindle. why would you need HD for ebooks?
How can this be HD with a screen resolution of 1024×768 or are technical specs of HD not relevant to the Apple universe now? Call something HD and it is?